The Complete Guide for Assassins

Dedication
To my guild mates, all GM & GS and all my friends for their love and support.

Content

I - Introduction

II - Disclaimer

Chapter 1 - Why Should I Play an Assassin?

Chapter 2 - Builds

Chapter 3 - Skills to Get

Chapter 4 - Decision Making and Trade-offs

Chapter 5 - Your Journey to High Level

Chapter 6 – PvP Strategies

Chapter 7 - Special Thanks & References

I - Introduction
The Union’s answer to the Ranger is the Assassin. Like the Ranger, stealth and deception are the trademarks of a good Assassin. Ambush and evasion are staples of the Assassin. Assassins can disguise themselves as harmless creatures or as the enemy, further enabling their stealth.

II - Disclaimer
This thread is written as a guide only and I do my best to provide all the information that is needed for your journey to the perfect gameplay of the assassin. The provided suggestions are based on my own experiences and expertise, where the knowledge is gained from other guides and forum threads.

Chapter 1 - Why Should I Play an Assassin?
Assassins are small, skinny, fast and very powerful. They are also known as one of the most annoying characters to level (have you ever seen the ranking list?). Most people are getting frustrated after an amount of time of leveling it by themselves, because not many people like to have an assassin in their party, due the lack of AoE (non-UM’s). I don’t want to scare you guys off from selecting an assassin, but grinding with as assassin is a bit of a pain. It takes lots and lots of time and effort to build one decent assassin, but eventually your patience will be rewarded in the end. When the time comes, you will even laugh to a healer oracle/pagan/tank guard who can’t find themselves a party. For those who likes the challenge, don’t hesitate to try out the assassin, for it is one of the strongest characters in Shaiya.

Characteristics
Assassins are able to use short blades, reversed swords and claws weapons. They have high evasion ability and annoying skills to fool their opponents. For every level-up, you are granted with an extra dex +1.

Chapter 2 - Builds
There are 3 different main-modes in Shaiya, where the easy mode is excluded. During your journey, you might start wondering how and where to put the stats points gained from each level-up. The most important question is the “why”. Well, the answer to this “why” question will be described here below. For each build type I will describe how to put your stat points for each mode. Remember that these are only suggestions, so if you think you have better solution, feel free to inform me.

StatsStrength: [STR] Physical damage and shooting attacking power increases
For each STR the attack power is increased with 1.3 damage.

Reaction: [REC] Physical defence power, shooting defence power and HP increase
Having a little REC in a build is a good thing. It adds HP and defence, allowing you to withstand hits better. For each REC you get 5 HP and 1 physical defence. There is a rule about REC for assassins, which is assassins don’t use defence to survive. They use evasion instead, that is where DEX is for.

Intelligence: [INT] Magic attack power increases. Oh wait... assassin has no magic attacks. That is PROHIBIDADO!!! (And I say that in Spanish, because that’s how exotic and not-allowed it is.)

Dexterity: [DEX] Physical, shooting attack-power increases slightly. For each DEX it increases the evasion & accuracy, attack power with 0.2 and SP increases with 5. This is the most important for most psychical combaters. For assassins don’t use defence much, the evasion is the best defence.

Luck: [LUC] Shooting attack power, critical hit rate, critical damage multiplier, critical evasion rate increase slightly.
Every five points increases your critical hit % by 1%. This is a very hard build and it requires much effort to make this build right. For more information, read the LUC vs. non-LUC section.

Build-Types
In this section, each build will be described with its stats division over the modes. The suggested stats are prioritized from standard to decent.

STR Assassin: This build is mainly focused on having a good base attack power. Besides STR, the assassin needs accuracy in order to hit the opponent. This build is focused on STR/DEX. (characteristic about this build is not to have more than 3 DEX per level-up)

NM: 3STR/2DEX, 2STR/3DEX (with good gearing 4STR/1DEX suggested)

HM: 5STR/2DEX, 4STR/3DEX (with good gearing 6STR/1DEX suggested)

UM: 6STR/3DEX, 7STR/2DEX (with good gearing 8STR/1DEX suggested)

My note: STR build is cool, because it is one of the basic starting builds. It is easy, powerful). Good for starters of NM and HM.

DEX Assassin: This build is mainly focused on evasion and accuracy. You are sacrificing your attack power in order to increase your evasion. Although this build is focused on STR/DEX, the characteristic part about this build is that you put 4 stats or more in DEX and is really close to balanced build.

NM: (Prohibidado)

HM: 3STR/4DEX

UM: 5STR/4DEX (very, very powerful and safe build)

My note: The DEX build is incredible as an UM. Don’t think 5STR/4DEX is a weak build, due to lack of damage, but it is very safe build to tank more mobs at same time, where your AoE will do the job.

REC Assassin: For all those who likes to be annoying in the battlefield with the least look on the resurrection-screen, this is your chance. This build mainly focused on evasion and shielding. A pure REC build is not good at all, since you will miss all the attacks. So, it requires a bit of DEX. This build is focused on REC/DEX or STR/REC/DEX.

NM: (Prohibidado)

HM: Actually inadvisable, but if you really want to, than go for 5REC/2DEX.

My note: I tried the 4REC/5DEX in PvP 20-30. It is funny, and annoying, and Alliance hate hit me with miss, miss, miss, but I still have the idea that I miss some defence. A good warrior/fighter has almost as much DEX as an assassin. So DEX has less chance to work. You better focus a bit more on REC in this case.

LUC Assassin: People are saying the LUC build is powerful, where others are saying the STR build is more powerful. I can say, they are both powerful (read more in LUC build vs. non-LUC build section). The LUC build is in fact a bit cheaper than the STR build when it comes to gears, but that is just a detail. Anyway, always have more than 400+ LUC. Everything below 400 is considered as weak. This means, it is a bad choice to start a new character and grind with LUC build all by yourself (unless you are getting powerlvled or leached from PP )

NM: (Prohibidado unless you have the perfect gearing for it (dreads).

HM: 1STR/2DEX/4LUC (stop putting LUC when it reached 225-250 and than go 5STR/2DEX, which is about level 50+ and level 53 preferred).

UM: 5STR/2DEX/2LUC (suggested by Killer595 if you want go LUC build from start)

My note: I myself don’t like grinding from level 1 to the top with a LUC build. It is better to go STR and DEX builds from start and restat at later level. The suggested restat level is 53, that is when you attained the incantation skill lvl3. My HM and UM assassins are both LUC build, pretty nice so far. I used the goal driven build, also known as the hybrid build, using a standard of LUC = 450-475, DEX = 300-450+, STR 300-500 in order to make this LUC build possible.

Chapter 3 - Skills to Get
The power from the assassin comes from their skills, which are sneaky and deadly. Assassins are seen as the most feared character in Shaiya, that is because they can take out any other types of characters in 1-on-1 fight and even taking out a whole party when the right skills are used. When the time comes you will see that your success is not only achieved by power and ubergearing, but in fact it is achieved by your situational awareness, which is a state of mind.

Syeeric Touch – LvL1 is HM skill and LvL2 is UM skill (inevitable). This the reason why you became HM/UM in the first place. Dieeeeeeee!!!!!!

So many skills, how to spend my points
That depends all what you are planning to do. You can either pick all chains and skip all the other optional skills or focus on few chains where it can be combined with the optional skills. Selecting all skills makes you weak and you are average weak in both PvE and PvP.

What skills to use while grinding?
The main damages comes from the Tetanus Chain. For all modes, this chain is a must when it comes to grinding. If you are HM or UM, pull mobs with blunt and finish them one by one. For UM players, you can use all the AoE skills. There are a few ways in dungeons to finish a group. Eviscerate (Evi) has a recharge of 45 sec, Dark Panic (DP) 90 seconds and Gruesome Zone (GZ) 90 seconds. If there are 2 groups, use one DP on one group and finish it with Evi. Than rest a bit and try to collect the second group and do GZ and finish it with Evi. DP will be recharged by than. Anyway... find your own best way to grind and create your own routines.

What skills to use for PvP?
To answer this question, it depends all what kind of an assassin you want to be. Most players use only the Tetanus, Stun and the Stealth chains for PvP. Besides that, the power buffs, such as Big Coup, Perfect Position, Flash Attack and Magic Defy are needed. The Drag Down chain is inadvisable, because in PvP, you won’t have enough time to lower their HP by 30% with 4 hits. You might be dead already. The assassin is made to have every solution for every problem. Read more in PvP Strategy section.

Assassins are Weak vs...
I can name all the those debuffs, but I can make it easier. Assassins are weak vs. slow and damage overtime. Avoid mobs that cast nasty magic damage on your such as Meteor. Avoid HP percentage reduction damages from mobs.

Chapter 4 - Decision Making and Trade-offs

Daggers, Reversed Sword or Dual Claws
In my opinion the dagger is a joke for assassins. It is like hunters using dual axes. Daggers are fast speed, but the assassin doesn’t has the dagger mastery. Eventually after the Weapon Mastery skills, it lost the game. So what is left are the reversed sword and the dual claws.
People are asking me questions about which weapon is better. Basically the reversed sword and the dual claw of the same level have the same AVERAGE damage. The difference between those 2 weapons are the minimum and the maximum damages and the stats. The characteristics of a reversed sword is it focused on LUC stats and has lower minimum - higher maximum damage where the dual claws has higher minimum - lower maximum damage and it is mainly focused on STR stats.

So which one is better?
Some people are saying that there is no difference between these two weapons, that is if you can use the stats in the perfect way. However, I disagree this answer. The reversed sword is SLIGHTLY BETTER.
When it comes to an opponent with 50 defence and 50 absorption, you might say the opponent has 100 defence. Assume that the reversed sword has the 80-120 damage and the claws has the 95-105 damage, the average damage of both weapon are 100. However, when you are facing an opponent with 100 defence, the reversed sword has more chance to pierce the this 100 defence with higher damage. In conclusion, the reversed sword is just slightly better but that is just a detail (and it makes your assassin look cooler <- my oppinion).

LUC BUILD vs. non-LUC BUILD
There has been a huge discussion about this LUC build vs. non-LUC build. Some claims that the non-LUC build is better. For the next example I will show you how the damage is calculated.

The Formula
One thing I am not sure, is the STR 1.3 attack or 1.333333... attack. I am still looking for correctness. Oh, keep in mind that the maximum LUC critical rate = 95%. So… if you have more than 475 LUC, replace the LUC/500 with 0.95. This is from my part the closest formula of the LUC calculation for assassins or even other classes except hunters (they get 1 damage from each 3 LUC).

So... this proofs the LUC build is better?
With these stats, I think the LUC build is just a little bit better. But than you are facing a big variable that I can't calculate, that is the amount of LUC of your opponent. Depending where you grind or who you fight, the critical rate depends on the amount of LUC your opponent has. The higher the LUC the opponent has, the lower your critical rate. This may even make your LUC build weaker than the non LUC build. Besides that, this is all theoretical. The practical part is that the non-LUC build has more defence. YES, there where the LUC builders have 3 stats to focus, the non-LUC builders has that also. For them it is either more defence or more HP.

What do we have learned so far?
What do we have learned, besides that we are mean, evil and sneaky? Static builds are cool, but flexibility is preferred. Flexibility comes from your gear. If you have a static build, than fix the end stats with your gear. If you have the gear already, than fix your stats based from the gears. I also prefer to put as much STR in my build as possible, because from all lapisses that provided stat points, the Craft is the most expensive. The static build is just a guideline to help you with how you put your stats each level. Eventually the Goal Driven build is the ultimate build, aka Hybrid build. Although the hybrid build is cool, there are still too many obstacles in your way that changes your amount of damage. For any problem there is a solution, but the same solution cannot be the answer for every problem. So.... there is no best build and there will never be one.

Chapter 5 - Your Journey to High Level

Grinding Path
Killer595 aka Kyrosin spend much time with writing the grinding path. I have no permission from him yet in order to inherit his work. I suggest you read
Assassin Leveling Guide from Kyrosin first. Anyway, I have a few additions:

Leveling 53-56
Depending on the correctness of your build, beyond level 53 HM or UM, you are strong enough to grind in Stable Erde aka Jungle or the Deep Desert solo. And yes, level as you farm. You will farm enough dual lapisses to link your gears, or sell for gold. Some people are farming 80-100 million worth of duals each day. Buy good gearing such as legendaries and goddess with that gold. This is your best opportunity to prepare you gearing for your future UM assassin with your current HM. Just be aware that with the introduction of EP4, the gates of both fractions are open 24/7/365. You are very squishy to those PvPers of the other fraction. Keep an eye on all those AP buffs (EXP pills, conti’s charms, Prevent Item Loss, etc...).

Leveling 56-60
Either go to Deep Desert 2 with the right equipments (earth and fire weapon) solo or in perfect party. Or go to the emperors/golems in Lanhaar. Deep Desert is not worth farming, you can also hold your teeth and stay in Jungle or Desert farming duals a bit longer.

Parties
From my experience, the duo with hunters is the best. There where the hunters needs distance, you can help achieve his goal. Besides that, the hunters loves your LUC buff. Trio (or just duo) with another oracle will increase your survivability. With EP4 now, you can either function as a filler in a perfect party.
Don’t spend too much time looking for a party. Assassins are build to solo in the first place. You are perfectly fine with green and yellow or even orange mobs.

Beyond Level 60
Yayyy, grats, if you read this section, than I still have good news. It is NOT game over. I have read topics that people are hitting the level 60 wall and than the fun is all gone, but they are wrong. Once level 60, your journey actually starts with a new life. This is your opportunity to perfect your current Assassin. I can list tons of things that you can do at level 60:

Perfect your gears

PvP the –peep- out till you are sick of it...

Go to places like Oblivia Island

Kill Uber bosses in farming parties

If you are bored, make new characters and make level 60

Linking chance increased with 1%. Use it.

GRB your –peep- off, to make your guild better.\

In future new Episode, the maximum level will be increased to 70, GRIND!!!!!

And a lot more...

Chapter 6 - PvP Strategies
As described in earlier section, I told you that assassins are able to kill any other type of characters.

1-on-1 Fights

Fighter/Warrior: These are pain if you timed your skills wrong or use the wrong skills in wrong order. Depending on how you are build, you can either use the Tetanus chain only. To be more safe, Stun Crash and finish it off with Tetanus combo. Be aware they use dispel potions also. As an UM, you just use the Dark Panic after the stun chain, and finish with Tetanus chain. Big Coup and Perfect Position is your best friend.

Defender/Guardian: – These are pain also. With the coming of EP4, the UM build battle tanks are sick. Fighting a battle tank, use Stealth -> Sleep -> Stun Chain -> Dark Panic -> spam the Tetanus chain. Watch out their melee reflector, you will kill yourself.
Fighting a meatshield tank (REC tanks), use the dot skills only. Eventually you will do more damage than he can defend itself. If you are UM, only 2 skills, Terrible Attack + Syeeric Touch and watch his ghost.

Priest/Oracle: Shadow Attack will do enough. Halt Kick and they won’t heal or shoot. Mmm, just kill it. (Dark Panic to make it perfect)

Mage/Pagen: Same as the healers, weak vs. Halt Kick and Dark Panic. Be aware that some casters are not REC build but DEX instead. You need a lot of DEX to hit them. DEX casters are pain.

Archers/Hunters – Always go stealth when you see one of these. They are pain, but with close distance and their unawareness, they are squishy. Keep in mind that archers/hunters has a nice DEX also and also the big coup skill. Stun it and kill it.

Rangers/Assassins: – Big Coup on first sight. Be prepared to stun him, but change strategy when you know that he is weaker than you after using the first skill Fatal Hit. In case when he is weaker, change the stun combo to drag down. In this way, he can’t hide due to the over time SP/MP damage that destealth him. Than stun him and kill it with Tetanus chain.
Well, if the weaker ranger/assassin is reading this guide also, they will know what to do. Whenever you are facing a bit stronger opponent, you try to stunlock him. When the chain is broken, time the stealth middle of the opponents combo. The chain of the opponent will fail and you finish yours.
Fighting ranger/assassin is actually 50/50, so the best skill user wins eventually.

One-vs-many
Be prepared for ouch time. This requires the best skilled, high-leveled and good gearing. What is more important is the situational awareness. Stealth first, wait till stealth is almost near recharge time, than Shadow Attack the healer. If it didn’t die, just Halt Kick it. When the rest of the party is like “huhhhhhh????” and coming to kill you, just do the Dark Panic. Everyone will be stupid. They are all trying to press 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 4, 4, 3, 3, 6, 6, 6. They will think like: “Why is my skill not working. Can’t dispel, aaahhhhh!!!! Panic. Iiiiiiiiiiiii”
Count to 13 after performing Dark Panic while kill the healer first. Than do the Fatal Attack or something on the tank and finish it with Syeeric Attack. On the 13th second, put on Big Coup, while killing the fighter with Tetanus Chain. Caster is trying to shoot you with the best spells, no worries, Magic Defy will do the trick. Finish the fighter/warrior and run to the caster. Halt Kick it and kill it. If there is another ranger/assassin nearby, don’t worry, big coup will do this trick. Stun lock and finish. Either restealth and kill the archer/hunter first. Your choice. They will QQ.
Killing one person in full party without dying or getting damage is a victory. If you think you can’t handle it anymore. Just bail. You won the fight already.

PvP 1-15
Also here, prepare for ouch time. Always well equip your character and have inventory filled with potions. Holy waters, arcane potions, etc… are helpful for your survival. Never give up and more importantly: never sacrifice yourself. It is very hard to explain on how I use my skills. Everyone is using their own methods of course. But I am very sure my methods are one of the best when it comes to assassin/ranger skills. My methods is basically the SHIFT-SWITCH method. And yes... even in PvP 1-15 I use all 5 skill bars:

Skill bar #1 – Tetanus Chain - vs. killing spree

Skill bar #2 – Stun Chain – vs. stun-locking targets

Skill bar #3 – Dragdown Chain – vs. other rangers and annoying tanks

Skill bar #4 – Dragdown + Tetanus Chain – taking down squishy rangers

Skill bar #5 – Buffs + all potions

During battling I pre-switch my bars for each kind of target after I locked my target. Very hard to explain. Maybe you guys should check out how I use my skills in this video by clicking HERE and also HERE. Watch both in HD though .
Another tip is like this... NEVER!!! and I say again... NEVER EVER walk on water when you are in stealth mode. This is what happens if you do this: Main Reason why Assassins/Rangers should not stealth on water.

Last Words
I really hope the provided information will help you with your questions. If you can’t find anything you are looking for, you are referenced to Chapter 7. I know my language is a bit sucky and it contains many errors, but I have a few helpers who will review this guide and PM me the updates. Have fun guys!!!

STICKY THIS

Yay! I thought this was long overdue (I considered doing a ranger one but mine would kinda suck)... so much has changed and the other sin guides are getting old :/ (no offence guys)

I myself did the 5 str 4 dex til lvl 40 and realized my dex was huge.. It's my favorite build I've used for UM rangers. More than 4 dex a lvl is a bit of overkill though. I did 5 str 4 luc until I had enough base luc to relapis into a hybrid crit build. At lvl 54 though I restated to a luc build. I think that 475 luc is not enough luc to crit all the time. I have 480 and I wish I could have just a bit more. (Those dinos have some crit resistance that gets really annoying. I'd say 500 luc would be better.

Re: The Complete Guide for Assassins

Builds, skills, trade-offs, PvE, PvP (Based on Episode 4)

Avalon_42 wrote:

The Complete Guide of an Assassin

[*]UM: 5STR/2DEX/2LUC (suggested by Killer595 if you want go LUC build from start)[/list]
My note: I myself don’t like grinding from level 1 to the top with a LUC build. It is better to go STR and DEX builds from start and restat at later level. The suggested restat level is 53, that is when you have get the incardination skill lvl3. My HM and UM assassins are both LUC build, pretty nice so far. I used the goal driven build, also known as the hybrid build, using a standard of LUC = 450-475, DEX = 300-450+, STR 300-500 in order to make this LUC build possible.

I can't say much about UM's as my 2 UM sins are still both nubs (lvl 15 and 30)

But I can tell you NM's can get good results with a hybrid STR / DEX / LUC at lvl 60.

I'm still using this toon for many things and have fun with it ^^

There are many possible Sins builds, you gotta find the right and well balanced stats thats will make your build work as expected.
Moving 20 stats point from one stat to another can make a huge difference.

I would also advise to flash all your weaps, as ATK speed increase really makes a huge difference for sins and is a lot more noticeable than on other classes.

Gratz again Irene on this guide, I'll add more feedback after re-reading it, and eventually when 60

At least if Shyama agreed with me for what I am saying, than this guide is pretty safe xD
Thank you guys. I did my best. There are still many things I would like to put in. Such as how to duo boxing, tips & tricks, etc....